


Gently Rise and Softly Call

by flowersforgraves



Category: Return of the Obra Dinn (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, POV Second Person, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:08:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27810514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforgraves/pseuds/flowersforgraves
Summary: TheObra Dinnhaunts your dreams.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	Gently Rise and Softly Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shamebucket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamebucket/gifts).



The watch weighs heavy in your pocket, as the memories of the _Obra Dinn_ crew weigh heavy in your heart. You have seen grisly death at sea before, both first-hand and within memories of others, but the monsters that invaded the _Obra Dinn_ are something new. The mermaids are grotesque in their marine forms, less a fusion of woman and fish than something whole and new entirely. They haunt your dreams in a way the kraken does not; there are plenty of monsters that lurk below the surface of the sea, and the kraken at least is a known entity. The crab-riders, however, seem to follow you during waking hours, too. It’s most unsettling when you’re in your study, and catch a glimpse out of the corner of your eye of motion, far too tall for it to be your housekeeper. The scent of decaying seaweed permeates your nostrils, long, spindly legs beneath an unknown center mass seeming to creep around corners.

You do not dare make mention of any nightmares to any Company employees. It is bad enough to be a woman in this position, with your skill and fortitude constantly in question; best not to encourage any rumors of a weak constitution. So instead of questioning your fellow inspectors, you grit your teeth and bear it.

At night, the _Obra Dinn_ is painfully clear in your mind. In your dream she is still whole, sails billowing in the gentle breeze and her decks bustling with life. You walk, carefully avoiding the seamen loading the cargo, and are stunned to recognize every face among her crew. Your eyes flicker over the men, taking in every detail – the two Formosan guards flanking the royals, the captain and one of the mates talking quietly next to the helm, the cargo being hoisted above the deck to be lowered into the hold. You quickly sidestep one of the seamen – one of the Russians, probably Toporov from the smoke that follows him – but aren’t quite quick enough. Strangely enough, he doesn’t even seem to notice you, and you barely feel the impact of his shoulder against yours. In your experience, sailors are quick to resent civilians in the way of duty, so the fact that he doesn’t even spare you a glare is noteworthy.

Your second clue that something is wrong comes with Emil O’Farrell. As you make your way below deck, you can see the butcher herding chickens into a coop. He’s muttering to himself in the Connacht dialect as he does, and you barely catch the tail end of the sentence where he switches to English as he calls out to the gunner’s mate coming down the stairs. “Oi! How much longer?”

Gibbs, panting with effort, drops the beam he is holding. “They’re bringing the last of the cargo down. Linde has the perishables about to be brought in.”

O’Farrell throws his arms wide, suddenly expansive. “Right then!” His arm – solid, real, living – passes directly through your chest.

You do not listen to the rest of the conversation. Instead, you find yourself transfixed by the arm through your chest, eerily reminescent of the placement of the spikes that will pin O’Farrell against this very wall. In your eyes, your body is solid, and O’Farrell’s arm now has a gap between the elbow and wrist, where it intersects with your chest. Twisting your head, you can clearly see his hand protruding from your back, and, most unsettling of all, neither O’Farrell himself nor Gibbs notice or react in the slightest.

It is both unprofessional and unladylike, but you do scream.

The silence that greets your scream – silence is, of course, relative; the buzz of activity of a ship about to launch doesn’t change, nor does the squawking of the chickens, nor the creaking of the planks below your feet – is resounding. Two distinct possibilities are now rising in your mind: one, that no one hears, sees, or feels your presence, or two, that no one _cares._ Neither is appealing, but the second is worse in a deep, creeping sense of dread that fills your bones.

O’Farrell drops his arms back to his sides, and you take the opportunity to make your escape downstairs. Even as you don’t wish to see any further detail about the crew’s fate, you cannot help the grim fascination that works its claws into you, as the crab-riders worked their claws through the decks of the ship – or perhaps it’s _will work_ now, since Samuel Peters still lives and the _Obra Dinn_ seemingly hasn’t yet left on her fated voyage. Making your way down to the hold, you see Peters standing next to the crates, guiding it down as the winch slowly unwinds.

You know what happens here, of course. You know that in the next moment Linde will call for them to wait, and in that moment it will be too late. Peters will have leaned too far forward, and the rope will snap, and his blood will stain the floorboards in an ill omen.

A French-accented voice calls out above: Miner, giving the order to lower the cargo. Almost immediately, Linde’s panic overtakes Miner’s order as he tries desperately to warn the men below, and you watch, as if time has slowed down, as the crate comes down far too quickly to stop.

One of the things the watch spared you was the sickening smell of viscera. Samuel Peters spills his guts and blood all over the cargo as he is sandwiched between two crates, and you are not so lucky this time. You have time for nothing but a breath, and then.

And then.

There is a blinding flash of light. You feel the wind knocked out of you, and you struggle to breathe momentarily. When you regain your composure, the sounds of the ship are still present, and you are standing on the main deck of the _Obra Dinn_. You glance around wildly, but everything is just as calm as it was before Samuel Peters’ death. In fact, as you watch in growing confusion, the scene looks very familiar.

The Formosan royalty and their bodyguards are only halfway down the gangplank, flanked by their guards. You are certain you saw them safe on the ship before, so there is no reason for them to have returned to the upper deck, let alone left the ship. You lean back against the rail, rocked back on your heels in shock.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spot Gibbs lifting a beam onto his shoulder, gesturing for George Shirley to pick up the other end. You feel a strong sense of deja vu, so powerful that you stumble a little as you move to follow Gibbs and Shirley down the stairs. They maneuver the beam around other crewmen, and when they drop down to the orlop deck, your stomach twists.

“Oi! How much longer?” O’Farrell calls out.

Gibbs sets the beam down heavily. “They’re bringing the last of the cargo down. Linde has the perishables about to be brought in.” The inflection is exactly the same, with no indication that this is the second time they’re performing the same actions.

You manage not to scream this time, but it is, unfortunately, a near thing. Galvanized into action, you clutch the pocketwatch dear to you, and run down to the cargo hold. You arrive just in time to see Samuel Peters lean forward, just as Miner gives the order to lower the cargo, and you barely have time to shout, “No!” before Peters is crushed to death.

The blinding flash of light, while still disorienting, is no longer completely unsurprising. You stumble backwards again, casting desperate glances around the main deck. The Formosans have just started down the gangplank – based on how fast they’re moving, you can make a reaasonable estimate that you have about five minutes before the cargo winch snaps, crushing Samuel Peters to death.

Galvanized into action, you rush down the stairs to the cargo hold. Peters is leaning casually against the wall, talking with Booth, who is keeping half an eye on the stairs while they wait for the next load to be lifted in. For a brief moment you could swear that Booth makes eye contact with you, and you inhale to call out to him, but in an instant the illusion shatters as his gaze tracks back further up.

You pace quickly around the area. Nothing looks particularly out of the ordinary; the planking looks stable beneath your feet and the cargo already in the hold seems to be properly secured. You push at a barrel experimentally, next to the one you know holds a stowaway. It budges slightly, but not enough to make a real difference. You consider the situation as the men take up their positions, Peters moving in towards the center to guide the crates to the ground.

Miner calls out the order to lower the cargo.

Linde shouts, “Wait! Wait! No! Down below!”

A light spray of Samuel Peters’ blood soaks into your jacket.

Prepared for the light this time, you start moving as soon as your vision returns. You are, of course, back on the main deck, and as you grow more comfortable in this strange looping dream, you find it easier to ignore the fact that you can pass directly through the crewmen on deck. While still unsettling, it has become a more minor curiosity in the overarching mystery of this whole situation.

This time, you reach the cargo hold with another few minutes to spare. You expect that, to disrupt the sequence of events, the most effective action will be to try moving the barrels, distracting the men and, hopefully, shifting Samuel Peters’ attention at a crucial moment.

The plan requires precise timing and brute strength you aren’t sure you can muster. Garbed as you are in bedclothes, your feet lack purchase on the floor to the extent you would prefer, and you have never been a laborer either on a ship or on land. Nevertheless, you clutch the edge of the barrel, and as soon as Miner’s voice rings out, you _heave_.

Samuel Peters doesn’t even notice. The barrel budges a bit more, but you still do not have enough force to override the ambient sounds of the ship preparing for departure. Booth turns toward you briefly, frowning slightly, but shakes his head, apparently dismissing your machinations as a normal part of the ship’s operations.

The light flashes as Samuel Peters screams his death scream, and you stand again on the main deck of the _Obra Dinn_.

Down in the cargo hold, you take stock of the resources available. Since you had been unable to move the barrels on the shelves sufficiently to disrupt the tableau that ends with Peters’ death, you decide to employ trickery rather than strength. Your eye catches on a thin strip of wood leaning against the side, and when you test the motion of it, it comes easily into your hand, lighter than you had expected. As a precaution you knock it to the ground in case anyone saw it move.

As if on cue – which is, perhaps, a morbid joke, but it makes your mouth twist in a parodized smile anyway – Rajub maneuvers a barrel through the door across from Peters and Booth, and trips over the wood you dropped moments ago. He falls, and Peters guffaws loudly.

Miner calls from above, and the load starts creeping downward. Booth grabs Peters by the arm and tugs him over to the side, where Rajub rolls to his feet and scrambles to right the barrel.

With a crash, the rope breaks. All three sailors curse, Rajub dropping into his native Hindi, and Peters shudders. “Damn thing coulda killed someone,” he says.

You wait for the flash of light, but it doesn’t come.

“Anyone hurt?” Linde shouts down.

“No thanks to you!” Peters calls back, and spits on the deck.

You breathe a sigh of relief, and slowly walk back up the stairs to the main deck, ready to take in the sun and sky with this out of the way.

You expect to wake shortly after, and settle into a nook up near the bowsprit. But you wait, and wait, and still you do not wake. The sun reaches its zenith, then passes it; the _Obra Dinn_ crew finishes loading passengers and cargo, and begins to raise the anchor. A growing trepidation builds in your stomach, swelling beneath your ribcage until you think your chest may burst.

As the ship leaves Falmouth, and the coast of England begins to grow distant, you shiver. The cool air is pleasant still, the smell of the sea filling your nostrils, but nonetheless you cannot shake the feeling that something is still deeply wrong.

Sliding your hand into the pocket of your dressing gown, your fingers close round the pocketwatch again. As long as the accursed thing stays still, you’re happy to keep using it as a comfort token, but the second it starts vibrating, it – and you, most likely – will be going straight over the side. You are _not_ here in your capacity as an inspector, and anyways it should be close to sunrise. You’ll wake in your bed and laugh at the silliness of this dream soon enough, and the pocketwatch will be safely secured in your study. You’re sure of it.

The sun slips to the horizon, then sets. The ship settles a little – the excitement of leaving port has mostly run its course, and the passengers are finding their sea legs. But you still do not wake. Remaining on the main deck is becoming increasingly difficult with the wind picking up and the cold of the night starting to sink into your bones, so you seek shelter below decks, looking for a comfortable spot to spend the night until you wake from this dream. Despite your testing of your theories about how you can interact with inanimate objects but not living beings, you still aren’t comfortable enough to lay down in a bed with one of the officers.

After you find a relatively quiet corner, you find yourself exhausted. Though this is a dream, your eyes still slip closed, and you doze fitfully for a few hours before your body gives up on trying to be comfortable.

So pass four days. You wander around the ship for hours, then return to the gun deck to sleep, still waiting to wake up from this dream. You do try, a few times, to wake yourself up – first by willing yourself to return to your body, then escalating into increasing levels of violence as you scream and cry and strike the walls, first open-handed, then with your fists, trying to use pain to ground yourself. The only thing it nets you are bruises and scrapes, and a hoarse voice that scrapes your throat when you breathe.

The bitter chill in the air provides the first indication that the _Obra Dinn_ is imminently bound for tragedy once again. You make your way to the gun deck to watch the two Indian sailors you know will die here in a few nights, curious to see the disease progress. You have not spent much time around the crew, instead preferring to shadow the mates and their stewards during the days you’ve spent at sea. Perhaps, after these two deaths, you will spend more time with the Formosan passengers, you think. The seamen are a tad uncouth for your liking most of the time, but you are intrigued by the Formosans and their mysterious cargo.

As you watch, Rajub and Syed grow sick, coughing and gasping for breath. Even though you are a phantasm here, unable to interact with other humans, and even though you recall very clearly that Evans, the surgeon, declared that the disease was not contagious, you find yourself withdrawing slightly, afraid of your own body twisting in that agony.

It is three days later that Syed and Rajub die. Their lives end unceremoniously, Syed coughing while Wasim tries to get him to drink. You know Rajub will pass several hours later, drugged with laudanum while his soul quietly departs. You watch Evans examine Rajub and, as he shakes his head, see him look up at Perrott.

“What are his chances?” Perrott asks, arms folded across his chest. You’ve been shadowing him in particular for this past week, drawn in by his strange demeanor and unshakable loyalty to the crew – not the captain, but the ship and the crew.

“I gave him some laudanum,” Evans says doubtfully. “We’ll have to see.”

“Don’t lie to me, Doctor,” Perrott says, voice gentle with a steel edge beneath. “Will he die?”

Evans straightens, casting a single glance at his mate, Wallace. “There is nothing else I can do for him,” he tells Perrott. “Whether he lives or dies is in the Lord’s hands now.”

Perrott nods slowly and gravely. “Thank you, Doctor,” he says simply, and turns away.

You hover over Rajub’s bed, staring at the man’s fevered face and furrowed brow. “Why don’t you live?” you whisper, almost without thinking. The laudanum should have helped. Even with Syed’s death – which didn’t cause the horrifying flash of light you had experienced during the time the ship was in Falmouth, until you had prevented Samuel Peters’ death – there should be no reason for Rajub to die tonight. Eventually, perhaps, he would succumb to the illness, but the laudanum should have allowed him to live through the night.

Rajub’s eyes open wide, and for a brief, disturbing moment, you think he sees you. But stumbling backwards, you pass directly through James Wallace, who watches Rajub from behind you. “Rajub,” Wallace says, sharp. “Do you know what’s happening?”

The dying seaman does not reply. Instead, he takes a single harsh, shuddering breath, and does not inhale again.

The blinding flash of light takes you completely by surprise, and you clamp a hand over your mouth to muffle the scream. You now once again stand in front of the Indian seamen’s hammocks, Syed and Rajub both coughing in their beds. Akbar peers at Syed while Wasim fetches him a glass of water.

You are too disoriented to make a move until the familiar cadence of Wasim’s Hindi tells you that Syed is about to expire. You of course do not speak the language yourself, but the pocketwatch you still keep clutched to you has shown you Syed’s death more than once, and it is enough to identify the scene. Rushing forward, you lean over Syed’s hammock, searching his body for anything that might be useful. If this is the same thing that happened to Peters, you need to find something to manipulate in order to change events.

It is, of course, too late. Syed gasps once more, and then Wasim scoops his corpse into his arms, shouting to Akbar. The conversation is still in Hindi, but the alacrity with which Akbar moves toward Rajub is enough to deduce that this is the move to the surgery. You follow Wasim to the carpenter’s shop, still trying to assess the resources you have at your disposal.

Gibbs is sober, brow furrowed, as he cuts part of their spare sail to shape. Smith moves quickly to prepare the rest of the last rites, carefully threading the needle to start stitching. “You spoke to Evans?” he asks, looking over at Wasim, who shakes his head.

“Akbar is there now,” he says. “With Rajub.”

Smith nods. “If you don’t want to see this, you should leave now,” he tells Wasim. “Go see Rajub.”

You do not wait to see if Wasim stays or goes. You have no wish to watch a corpse sewn into a hammock; you’ll attend the burial-at-sea and send his soul on its way, but you feel no other obligation to Syed. Instead, your cursory examination of the carpenter’s shop complete, you turn on your heel and make your way back to the surgery, arriving just in time to see Perrott enter the room.

Allowing the conversation between Evans and Perrott to blend with the ambient sounds of the ship, you search the office. As you scan over the desk, hoping to find Evans’ notes on this strange sickness, a familiar glint catches your eye. Reflexively, you reach for the pocketwatch, and are relieved to find it still solid in your palm, the cool metal grounding against the rising tide of panic. That selfsame pocketwatch lays on Evans’ desk, tucked behind a stack of papers. It feels for a moment, irrationally, as if the skull emblazoned on the front of the watch is laughing at you, in your impotent rage against the impossibility of this situation, and you are suddenly seized by the desire to throw the watch overboard.

But even as you reach out to take the watch on the desk, your dream-watch begins to vibrate. You freeze, hesitating, and slowly the buzzing subsides as your rage fades.

You manage to distract yourself from the watch as you finally turn your attention to the notes Evans is taking right now. His handwriting is obtuse, but familiar from your original investigation, so it is not as difficult to read as it might have been. Quickly, you track the symptoms and the speed of the onset reported by Akbar as he writes, peering over his shoulder like a schoolmarm. The cough and chills had been mild until very recently, when they suddenly worsened exponentially. You still are uncertain how to alter the course of these deaths, but armed with information, you are prepared to make your first attempt. For now, though, you must wait until the loop begins again.

You pass the time pacing up and down the length of the main deck. Casting glances out over the sea, you find it hard to keep from imagining the horrors you know to be lurking in the depths: the crab-riders you know will attack the _Obra Dinn_ in the next few weeks, the mermaids’ grotesqueries that will lie in the lazarette, the kraken’s tentacles that will grip the ship and rend sailors limb from limb. But, of course, you must not become distracted. Just as you begin to wonder whether you have somehow miscalculated, the light comes and takes you away.

As soon as your vision returns, you leave the hammocks to find Evans. Alerting him to a crewmember in distress may not be enough, but it is most certainly worth a try. He stands in the doorway of the surgery, Wallace behind him pottering about the room. You bull straight through them both, and knock over a glass bottle across Evans’ desk.

Wallace whips around, startled. “What the –”

Evans turns, jumps a little. “That wasn’t you, was it?”

“No,” Wallace says, obviously surprised. “It just fell over on its own, sir.”

Evans peers at the bottle, and though you’ve certainly succeeded in capturing his attention, there’s no other way for you to communicate. He simply shakes his head. “Perhaps the sea is trying to send us a message,” he says, and then returns to his former position.

Frustrated, you return to the main deck as Akbar rushes into the surgery carrying Rajub. It’s too late to save Syed, so you give up for this loop.

At the next loop, you barely wait for your vision to clear. Instead of spilling the whole bottle, you dip one finger into the open inkwell. Smearing it over the crew manifest, you mark the two names of the seamen who will die tonight. Then, satisfied with your work, you spill the ink in the opposite direction.

This time, Evans is the one to notice it first. “Wallace!” he calls to his mate. “Did you spill the ink?”

“No, sir, I did not,” Wallace responds immediately. He comes to stand next to Evans, frowning down at the crew manifest. “Sir?” He points at the two smears of ink you left next to Rajub and Syed’s names.

Evans traces a finger down the crew manifest. “The two lascars who were sick. Check on them, will you?”

You breathe a sigh of relief as Wallace heads out of the room. You hope this is enough to change the fates of the two seamen, and you hover nervously outside the surgery, waiting for Wallace’s return. Soon enough, Wallace returns with Wasim and Akbar, each carrying one of the sick men, in tow.

You have no wish to see any of the medical care itself being performed. Yet even still, you find yourself hesitant to leave, despite your distaste for the processes. Almost like a mother hovering over a newborn even though a wet nurse may be more qualified to care for the child, you find yourself checking in periodically. Slowly, painfully so, you feel time drag on in fits and starts, and it’s only when O’Farrell calls for the midshipmen to help butcher the cow that you start to feel a sense of relief. But even then, you cannot bring yourself to rejoice.

After the cow has been slaughtered, you allow yourself the tentative hope that this round of loops has concluded. As you make your way once more to the main deck, you find that the sun is lower in the sky than it has been on this day before, and only then do you finally accept your success. Changing the fate of two men who died of sickness is, if nothing else, tiring work, and as soon as you’re satisfied that the loop is indeed over, you retreat to the lower decks out of the chill wind to sleep.

Over the next several days, you barely see the sun. You do not know when Nichols will murder Pasqua, only where; to avoid missing any key details, you stay close to the chest with the shells. Your only company is first one Formosan guard, then the other, then the first, as they switch off in shifts to keep watch over the mysterious item. They of course do not see you, but you find the silence relatively companionable. It is much quieter here in the cargo hold than above, with the predominant noises coming from the ship itself rather than men shouting and clambering about the sails.

The first time Nichols comes down, you stumble to your feet in terror. Despite your imperceptibility, you are still opposed to getting any gore on you – that first loop with Peters was a horrifying experience, one that you have no desire to repeat. But the second mate only takes a turn around the hold, making a show of checking the tension on the cargo tie-downs. He even nods respectfully at the guard – Lau, you think. This is definitely the man who Nichols will frame for Pasqua’s murder, and despite neither seeing him interact with others often nor speaking the language, you have grown rather fond of him.

Lau does not nod back, instead remaining stoic and giving no indication that he has heard or seen Nichols at all. Nichols shakes his head and snorts quietly, and you feel a sudden, bizarre desire to throw the pocketwatch at Nichols’ retreating form. You restrain yourself and settle warily back down, waiting for the event itself to occur.

Nichols nearly manages to lull you into a false sense of security when he fails to return in first one day, then two. But on the third day, he reappears, alone and late in the evening when the skeleton crew who man the ship at night take their expanded posts. A sick twisting in your stomach makes you grow ever more certain that the deed is about to be done.

Even as you have the thought, Nichols moves with striking speed, and you instinctively dive out of the way of the butt of his sword as it comes down to knock Lau unconscious. His body hits the floor with a dull thud, one that you feel, based on the scale of the ship, should have sounded much softer than it actually did. Nichols sheathes his blade, then kneels down to start working greedily at the chest, trying to open it without breaking the fragile golden lock.

As if on cue, Pasqua’s voice comes faintly from the deck above as he starts down the stairs. “Hello?” he calls. “Who is there? Who is that? Is someone hurt?”

Nichols straightens quickly, nearly bashing his head against the chest. “Eh?” he calls back, hurrying forward.

“Signor Nichols, is that you?” Pasqua sounds slightly relieved, but only slightly. “What are you doing down here?”

The moment when Nichols makes the decision to kill him is clear. “Hello, yes, it’s all fine, here,” Nichols says, too bright. “Just, ah, sorting some things. Watch your step – here, let me help you –”

You do not want to watch the knife slide neatly between Pasqua’s ribs.

As with Peters’ death, you cannot tear your eyes away as Nichols rams the blade home. This death is painful in a way the others had so far not been, the light of betrayal in Pasqua’s eyes sharp and accusatory even as life faded from his face. Nichols slowly lets Pasqua’s body fall to the ground, lowering it almost gently with a kindness he had not shown during the murder itself. He mutters something under his breath – you strain to make out the words, but only catch the tail end of it. “…home free. Damn him,” Nichols snarls, and turns on his heel and takes off back up the stairs.

You wait for the light to blaze once more in your eyes, sitting on the ground beside Pasqua’s corpse, and it does not come. You wait, and wait, and finally, when Lau stirs next to you, you realize that this loop will not end until Lau dies as well.

A ruckus above the deck arouses you from your stupor. Nichols and his steward, along with a few other men – notably, only one of them is part of the group Nichols will later lead off the ship to mutiny, the topman. The theatrics of Nichols’ “discovery” of the body make your gorge rise, and you leave the cargo hold rather than watch any longer.

Instead you make your way to the top deck, seating yourself next to the railing and watching the stars grow brighter in the sky. The helmsman is off duty, so the tiller is tied with rope, one of the night crew rechecking it every so often. If you didn’t know what was going on below deck, you might even find it peaceful. You stay there until the sunrise blinds you, and the noise of the crew becomes too obvious to ignore.

As you couldn’t bring yourself to watch Nichols pretend that he hadn’t murdered Pasqua, neither can you bear to witness Lau’s hanging. Though it is a bullet, not the strangulation, that kills him, you have already seen his death through the pocketwatch, and you don’t care to see it again. Despite yourself, you had grown fond of the two guards, and it is unprofessional to cry.

Although the execution is a painful moment, you find yourself in the surgery, turning toward the two lascars whose lives you had saved from that illness. They are both still weak, but they will both survive (so say Evans’ notes, still in that same half-legible cramped scrawl). You remind yourself that you will have another opportunity to save Lau and Pasqua later, in the next loop, but it feels a small comfort compared to the enormity of the execution of an innocent man.

Syed stirs restlessly, and on impulse, you refill the cup of water at his bedside before he reaches for it, pleasantly surprised when he can drink deeply. You do the same for Rajub on the other side, and stay in the surgery until Evans and Wallace return, solemn, from the execution.

The light flashes.

You stagger, off balance, as you return to the cargo hold. Lau stands guard next to the chest, and Nichols has not yet come down to steal the cargo. The hold is dark and quiet, and you focus on the sound of Lau’s breathing in time with the creaking of the ship to ground yourself. Standing close enough to Lau that, were you physically present in the traditional sense, you would be able to feel his body heat, you force yourself to calm down and think through this scenario rationally.

Since you cannot physically interpose yourself between Nichols and Pasqua, you will either have to prevent Nichols from knocking Lau unconscious or prevent Pasqua from coming down the stairs. The first option will be much more difficult, but if you focus on Pasqua, Nichols’ theft will almost certainly succeed.

It is a chance you will have to take. As you make the decision, you see Nichols start down the stairs. You’re running out of time, and you race past him, hoping to intercept Pasqua before it’s too late.

Pasqua exits his cabin as you come upstairs. Before he closes the door behind himself, you dart inside. The fabric of your robe gets caught in the door, and you tug at it, hard, trying to free yourself.

You hear a few stitches start to tear, and give up. Glancing around the cabin, you notice that the only thing in your reach is Pasqua’s violin case. With a sweep of your arm, you send it crashing to the floor, assuming that he, like most musicians, cares deeply for his instruments.

Trapped in his door, you wait, holding your breath and hoping against hope that Pasqua returns to check on his violin. Nothing happens. The cabin is eerily quiet, even moreso because you rarely get the chance to sit with a door between yourself and the crew. Carefully, you lower yourself to the floor, and try not to think about the events undoubtedly unfolding below. Right about now, Lau is on the floor, Nichols’ knife buried in Pasqua’s chest. The concept of being trapped in a dead man’s cabin while his murder takes place below is existentially horrifying, and slowly, you realize that you won’t be able to open the door yourself without attracting attention. You’ll be trapped here until someone opens Pasqua’s door to go through his belongings.

The next hours pass with excruciating slowness. In that time, you have ample opportunity to reflect on this failure. You conclude that your original plan was not a bad one, and that it was merely a failure of execution. Next time, you cannot afford to waste time in the cargo hold waiting and thinking. Instead, it must hinge on reaching Pasqua’s cabin before he actually leaves, then knocking over his violin case as soon as he is about to close the door. You resolve to rectify the situation, and the next loop will bring you success.

Finally, when the ruckus outside the door quiets to a more reasonable level, one of the Chinese topmen – the same mutinous man who will later depart with Nichols on the dinghies, Li Hong – opens the door to Pasqua’s cabin. You barely stop to watch him gather Pasqua’s belongings, choosing instead to make your escape before you become entangled in some other predicament. You haven’t seen the sun in almost a day, and it is a great relief to be able to walk more than a step or two in any direction.

Again, you cannot bring yourself to watch Lau’s execution. Instead you time yourself, figuring out exactly how long it will take you to get from the cargo hold to Pasqua’s cabin. In between, you sit on the second deck, staring out one of the gunports. It is the closest to being outside you can get given that you refuse to see Lau die for a crime he did not commit; you find the breeze bracing and comfortable, despite the chill in the air that still remains.

The light, when it comes, is almost a relief.

As you had planned, you run up the stairs as soon as you have your legs under you. Pasqua hasn’t yet noticed the noise from down below, and you hover anxiously outside his door as you wait. Just when you’re starting to get worried, he opens the door, brow furrowed in a concerned expression.

Immediately you slip past him into the room, and as he is about to close the door behind himself, you sweep the violin case to the ground.

Pasqua’s hesitation is momentary. Then, in a swift move that belies his age and slow speech, scoops the violin back onto his bunk and immediately turns back out to the door. Stunned into inaction, you barely manage to leave the room before he actually closes the door. You stumble after him, too disoriented and horrified to do anything to stop Nichols as he knifes Pasqua in front of you like a nightmare.

You do not leave the cargo bay afterwards.

Bolstered by your easy success in the previous chapter of the logbook, you had assumed there would be an easy victory in this chapter as well, that your failure in the previous loop was that of execution, not a fundamental error in your plan itself. You have neither the presence of mind nor the desire to pick yourself up off the floor, even when Lau is taken above for the execution. Perhaps it was foolish to think this way, but you have always relied heavily on your wits and cunning to claw your way up the ranks of the HEIC despite men consistently underestimating you. You had no reason to think this would fail you now.

The more you think about it, the less certain you are that your wits actually did fail you. You have found yourself getting attached to the crew and passengers, and the emotions therein may have clouded your judgement. You spend the rest of the loop sitting on the ground, eyes staring blankly at the wooden planks of the hull, and barely notice the light change.

Finally, you manage to rouse yourself from the depressive stupor. If intercepting Pasqua on his way down had not been successful, then you must attempt the other tack. You come back to yourself none too soon: the sway of the ship tells you that Nichols will be coming down to steal the conch within the hour.

Your best chance is going to be to disrupt the chest itself. Both Lau and Nichols are invested in its security, and delaying Nichols’ opportunity to knock Lau unconscious will increase the likelihood for someone else to come down and intervene. Carefully, you maneuver yourself to stand behind the chest, waiting for the most opportune moment to give it one calculated push.

As Nichols descends to the cargo hold, anxiety swells in your chest and throat. This is a different sensation than before; you chalk it up to your emotions getting in the way and resolve to suppress it. Lau’s shoulders tense slightly when Nichols approaches, and if you hadn’t been looking for it you would never have seen him shift.

Right before Nichols draws his sword to bash Lau’s skull, you give the chest a hard shove. With a loud clatter, it falls face-first to the deck, and Nichols visibly jumps. Lau, expression on his face for the first time, gestures Nichols to stand across the way while he inspects it. Cautiously, Nichols obliges him, brow furrowed with frustration.

The voice from above startles even you.“Hello? Who is there? Who is that? Is someone hurt?”

It’s Pasqua. The Italian stands halfway down the stairs, squinting into the dim light of the cargo hold.

“No, everything is quite alright,” Nichols says soothingly. “A piece of cargo came loose, that’s all.” His voice is a stark contrast to the vicious greed you can see in his eyes from your vantage point, midway between Lau and Nichols once the deed was done.

Pasqua, bless him, continues down into the cargo hold. “Signor Nichols? What are you doing down here?”

Despite knowing there is very little you can do to alter the course of events, you still step forward as if you might intercept Nichols before he decides to make a move. But for all your caution, Nichols only begins to usher Pasqua back above to his cabin. He casts a searing look over his shoulder at Lau, who is dusting the now-upright chest and doesn’t notice.

 _I’ll be damned_ , you think, almost giddy with excitement. Having solved this chapter, you allow yourself a brief moment to celebrate before you realize that with Pasqua’s murder averted, you have no idea what the timescale for Nichols’ planned escape will be. You’ll have to tail him until you have a more solid idea, then work quickly on your feet to assess the best way to alter the deaths that will come next.

It is darkly amusing to you to trail Galligan, Nichols’ steward, in the same way Galligan trails Nichols. But where Galligan is assisting Nichols, you intend to do harm to Nichols and Galligan’s plans, if not their physical selves. While you’re doing your best to remain impartial, even here in this dreamscape of the _Obra Dinn_ , mutiny is something you believe to be unforgivable. Even with the knowledge that Nichols was correct in assuming Witterel to be unstable, given his suicide at the end of the voyage, it was still not his place to leave the crew.

The next two days pass uneventfully, for a given definition of the word. You trail Galligan to several secretive meetings with Nichols and the other men who will leave the _Obra Dinn_ with the shells and two captives: Toporov, Hong, O’Hagan, and Nikishin. At a certain point, the mutinous discussion becomes almost boring; you spend more time attempting to wake yourself up than actually listening to the conversation. Only when O’Hagan offers to attempt the theft do you finally return your attention to the men.

“Look, treasure doesn’t steal itself,” O’Hagan points out. “And no disrespect intended, sir, but Mr Nichols’s plan didn’t work. Let me have a shot at it.”

“And your plan will be better how?” Toporov frowns at him, pipe still clenched between his teeth.

O’Hagan leans forward, clapping Toporov on the shoulder. “If you’d just listen, you bastard, I might tell you!” He laughs like it’s a joke – they all do, but there is a hardness in both men’s eyes that brings it into question for you. “Simple. We get the royals in a dangerous spot, and then while the guards are distracted we snag the chest. Just gotta wait until the sea gets a little rougher.”

“Then we can’t leave,” Hong points out, quite reasonably.

Indeed, if the escape plan relies on setting the emergency dinghies over the side, rough seas will be a major complication. You listen to them debate with half an ear, keeping most of your attention focused on Nichols, who sits half-turned away, unusually quiet. You can tell he is planning something, though what it is you hesitate to guess. But you do know that this will be your opportunity to get ahead of him; by voicing the plan, he guarantees your knowledge and therefore will allow you the advantage. You almost tell O’Hagan to hush before you remember you are unseen and unheard, so eager are you to hear Nichols’ scheme.

But instead of speaking, Nichols stands up, and, with an air of finality, strides purposefully down the stairs. A sick feeling twists in your gut, cold and angry. You follow him, ignoring Galligan, and rush ahead, turning to see his face. His jaw is set, eyes gimlet-steel, and you know what he is going to do.

Without any time to prepare, you have little you can do to stop him. Pistol drawn, he marches straight into the Formosan royals’ cabin, batting aside Tan’s surprised defense. While Tan is a better fighter than Nichols – you’ve seen them each train, and both Lau and Tan would likely be able to defeat any given crewmember in a one-on-one weaponless fight – Nichols’ bold opening move sweeps past the primary defenses. With his gun trained on Lim, he has the upper hand in every way. Tan either cannot or will not endanger his charges, giving Nichols near-impunity.

Nichols beckons the older gentleman along as well, still maintaining his control with the gun. All you can do is follow helplessly as Nichols frogmarches the royals down to the cargo hold. Lim remains remarkably composed, even calm, and for a brief moment she seems to make eye contact with you. But you still cannot do anything to stop him, not without ensuring at least one avoidable death.

“Take the chest,” Nichols snaps to Lau. “Or I shoot her.”

The language barrier is crossed easily with the cocking of his pistol. Lau looks to first Lim, then Sia, but you cannot read the expression on his face. Lim nods slowly, once, and says one word in the Formosan language. Lau’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, but he bows in acquiescence nevertheless. His muscles strain as he lifts the chest, but he carries it with relative ease for something so large and awkward. Nichols gestures him up the stairs, and –

You recall, suddenly, that there was one death in the logbook that should have already occurred, but has not.

Galligan, knowing his master’s mind, has already ordered the mutineers to prepare the two boats. Nikishin and Hong have loaded supplies, while O’Hagan and Toporov guard the boats. At the sight of Lau carrying the chest, Galligan gestures the two forward. “On your toes, boys,” he tells them.

Lau relinquishes the chest after only a brief hesitation, and the two men take it from him.

“We best push off,” O’Hagan remarks, as Lim finally twists in Nichols’ grip, calling out.

Galligan grabs Sia, manhandling him down into the boat. O’Hagan gestures to Nichols. “Give ‘er here,” he says gruffly. Despite the insubordination, Nichols allows it with nothing more than a glare.

Lim cries out in English, “Captain! Captain!” but to no avail. Witterel is soundly asleep, and you cannot wake him in time. You feel frozen in place, unable to move.

“Slack the lifts,” Nichols orders. “Lower the boats! The whole crew will be on us in a minute.”

You watch, as if this were a vision of the past, forgetting for a moment that you can move and act in this moment. Butement, the topman whose death was logged in the chapter you thought you had finished, stands next to the rail, aiming down the barrel of a shotgun. “Give it up!” he yells. “I’ve raised the alarm already, there’s nothing you can do!”

Nichols turns, and, almost casually, fires at Butement.

Time seems to slow as Butement’s corpse falls backward. You finally snap out of your daze, remembering you have some power to act, and though it is too little, too late, you move to catch him.

His body passes right through you, and as soon as it hits the ground, the light takes you.

You return to consciousness at the meeting of the mutinous group, thankfully tucked into a corner so that your legs don’t immediately give way. You’ve found that, while the initial shock of the first few loops had been painful, you recovered much more quickly, as if the more loops you experience the more strain it puts on you.

Toporov and O’Hagan are in the middle of their argument about stealing the shells. Nichols is already deep in thought, so you know you have only a few minutes to spare.

Without any time to plan, you act on instinct. You run for the captain’s quarters, looking for something large and heavy enough to wake a sleeping man on the way. There is no plan, merely a half-formed idea swelling in your mind, and you desperately need to buy yourself time to make that idea come to fruition.

You stop, realizing that you need to remain close enough to the mutinous group to watch Nichols leave. They are not so stupid as to plot within earshot of the captain’s quarters, but that makes your timing somewhat difficult. You pace back and forth a few times, stopping in quick, aborted steps every time you remember you’ll have to balance the likelihood of missing Nichols’ departure as opposed to making it to the captain in time.

Your eventual solution is to stand facing perpendicular to both the meeting and the captain’s door, then turning your head rapidly from side to side. The efficacy of it is still in question, especially considering you’re somewhat dizzy from the sharp and constant motion, but you are reassured that you are far less likely to miss something than while pacing. It’s only a few minutes later that Nichols strides off with purpose in his step, and you take off to the captain’s quarters.

The lantern hanging outside the captain’s quarters is probably going to be the best option. If you were a betting woman, you would wager on the noise of a lantern shattering being enough to not only wake a sleeping man, but also to be concerning enough to warrant getting out of bed to investigate. However, unlike the last sequence, you don’t see many other options. There aren’t two clear tacks as there had been with the attempted murder, nor are there any pivotal moments that crystallize as changeable in your mind. This – rousing the captain – is your all-or-nothing.

Though it pains you to do so, you wait patiently for Lau to appear with the chest. The second you see the shine of the gilded chest, you heave the lantern off its hook.

With a sharp clatter and an oddly melodious clang, the glass of the lantern shatters. Burning oil spills out onto the deck, and you instinctively jump back despite your current immunity to fire. You hear Witterel start moving in the cabin.

“What the –” He flings the door open, eyes taking in first the flames at his feet and then Nichols’ mutinous group. “Mr Nichols!” he bellows at the top of his lungs. “Stand down!”

Nichols shouts to his men, “Move!” He shoves Lim forward roughly. She stumbles a bit, but recovers, then stomps on Nichols’ foot as hard as she can.

The sea boots issued by the HEIC are sturdy, durable things. For the first time you wish they were less well-made; Nichols deserves every ounce of pain from that attack. “Captain!” she cries out.

Witterel drops a blanket over the oil, and, moving far more quickly than you would expect from a man suddenly woken from a deep sleep, loads his sidearm as he crosses the deck. “I said stand down, Nichols! Men, stand down! You may not be hanged if you stand down!”

There’s a hesitation in two of the men. Hong and Nikishin trade a glance, but it isn’t enough to stop them.

You clench the pocketwatch in your fist, feeling the winding knob start to leave its grooved marks on your palm. But still you squeeze it, tighter and tighter. Your eyes fix on Butement, loading a shotgun as he warily looks between the captain and the second mate. The pocketwatch digs into the meat of your hand as you hold it tighter. No more is the metal a cool relief; instead, warm from your skin, the watch practically feels as if it were another part of your body.

“Get the chest on the boat!” Nichols orders. As if in a fugue state, his mutineers comply, movements slow and puppet-like. Secure in holding the two royals prisoner, Nichols turns back to Witterel and sneers. “You have nothing, Captain! I have all the high cards, and you have naught but bluffs! Best you let us go and mark the cargo lost at sea. I’m sure the purser will be happy to fudge the numbers if you pay him enough.”

The gloating makes Witterel’s lip curl, exposing his teeth. It’s an unpleasant look on his face, but nothing worse than what you’ve seen from him in the dioramas from later in the logbook. In fact, it may be better – or at least more righteous – than his anger at the krakens and mermaids. “Damn you, Nichols,” he shouts, emotion roughening his voice.

Then, before you can react, Butement raises the gun to his cheek. He sights down the barrel for a half second, then fires with a whisper of a prayer on his lips.

Nichols’ head explodes, spattering Lim’s dress with gore. Despite the distance from the impact, you still pull back as if you had a near miss. Lim screams, and Sia rushes forward to help her.

The chest is already on one of the small rowboats, about to be let free off the side. You hesitate, unsure where to turn. Nichols wasn’t supposed to die in this chapter; it is only upon his return that he should be shot. Neither should Butement have killed him; Tan would have claimed that dubious honor in the next chapter immediately before being killed himself.

Instead, the tableau remains frozen for a brief, hideous second.

Then Butement drops the shotgun. As if the clatter of it striking the deck shatters invisible bonds holding the group in place, the action resumes. Lim gasps and sobs, and Witterel thunders forward. The remaining mutineers shift their weight – Toporov looks like he’s getting ready to dive over the side, but Hong, Nikishin, and O’Hagan seem to have surrendered to the inevitable. Galligan stands off to one side, slowly edging his way out of the captain’s line of sight as if that will save him.

You wait for the light to come. You had assumed that with Nichols’ death, the loop would reset, but as time continues to pass without any indication of another loop, you find yourself growing anxious. Perhaps you will need to wait for the mutineers to be executed?

Regardless, you are exhausted. As you had noted before, the multiple loops have begun to take a toll on you, both physically and mentally. While you feel a sense of obligation to witness the events that follow, you also desperately need to sleep before your body fails you. The tiny corner you woke up in at the beginning of this loop sequence is close, and it was not uncomfortable, so you make your way over and let your eyes drift closed.

You wake to the sun high in the sky, shining down on your exposed face. You blink yourself alert, scrubbing a hand over your eyes. There is a feverish buzz about the crew, something between anticipation and dread. Many of the men had been friends with some of the mutineers – in particular, the other Chinese topmen have banded together and stand to one side, casting periodic glances at Hong. In turn, Hong watches them, eyes narrowed almost accusatorially.

Volkov, the remaining Russian, stares unblinking at Nikishin, who studiously avoids his gaze, looking everywhere but Volkov’s face. You have no doubt that Volkov knew about the plan and refused the offer to come along. Either Nikishin was the one who had broached the subject with his countrymen, or – more likely, as far as you’re concerned, which is nearly not at all – had been torn between Toporov’s greed and Volkov’s loyalty, and fallen on the wrong side of the line. Toporov is smoking, eyes fixed out on the sea.

While you refused to watch Lau’s execution, you have no such compunctions regarding the mutineers. Galligan is the first to be hanged,and with little fanfare, Witterel orders the gunner, Wolff, to fire when ready.

Wolff raises his arm, not unlike the starter at a horse race. You set your eyes on Galligan, and do not blink when four shots sound off in unison. His body jerks in the noose once, blood spreading over his steward’s coat, and then his corpse is cut down rather unceremoniously.

Toporov, O’Hagan, Nikishin, and finally Hong are all subjected to the same merciless treatment. You take no pleasure in watching them die – the only one you had truly felt disdain toward had been Nichols himself, and Butement had taken care of that problem at the source – but neither do you mourn them. You murmur a perfunctory prayer under your breath to ensure their souls are weighed fairly, and the issue of the mutiny is over.

Still, the light does not come.

With the rest of the crew in an unusually somber mood, you pace the deck restlessly until you feel the exhaustion set in again. Making your way back to the same quiet corner, you maneuver yourself around until you are in a position that is both comfortable and out of the direct light of the sun. As the _Obra Dinn_ sails south, the weather is growing warmer by the day, to an extent you hadn’t anticipated, and at midday you think almost longingly of the chill wind of the night Rajub and Syed nearly died. You sleep through the rest of the afternoon and the night, finding yourself again woken by the sun in your face.

Still, the light does not come.

You pass a few more days in this way, shadowing one crewman or another for a few minutes before switching to a new one. A few times, you manage to slip into the captain’s office to study the map and try to orient yourself and remind yourself how much of the voyage is still to come. The captain himself seems relatively stable, though you know very well what madness lies within him, waiting to be awoken. He addresses Hoscut, the first mate, with an almost jovial tone as they pore over navigation charts and test the winds.

Those few days bleed into a week, the week into two, and even still the light simply does not come. You find yourself sleeping less than the desperate exhaustion that had plagued you during the loops, but still more than you would like.

Despite your trips to visit the captain’s map, you still find yourself surprised when the air starts to take on the sting of cold. Evans monitors Syed and Rajub on a nightly basis, but their health seems to have fully returned. You spend a night reading his notes, and are unsurprised to find that he still does not understand their illness. Your curiosity about that sickness sated, or at least having access to all the information possible, you force yourself to let that line of thought expire.

Still, the light does not come.

The weeks bleed into months, and when you see a fuzzy dark line on the horizon, at first it doesn’t even register. The cry raised by the topmen upon sighting what is, apparently, the _Obra Dinn_ ’s destination, however, certainly does.

The Formosan royals gather their belongings, including the chest – still locked, the shells safe inside, and the ship unharmed by kraken or crab-riders – and prepare to debark. You know they cannot see or hear you, but you feel it would be impolite to not say goodbye. For another surreal moment, it seems as though Sia’s eyes meet yours, but it is far too brief for you to be certain of anything.

The procession off the ship is nothing like the one that had brought the Formosans on board, but it is something close. It resonates with you, providing a strange sort of soul-echo from the scene you watched (over and over, you watched) in Falmouth. The royals are greeted by swarms of people in the streets, and the chest, its locks and shells intact, is carried off the ship to safety. As the crowd closes behind the procession – the royals and their cargo becoming lost in the flood of humanity, distinguishable only by the thin circle of space around them – you think of the horrors you witnessed with the watch, and bite your lip.

You become restless and edgy during the short time the _Obra Dinn_ is docked in the port. Sailors come and go, using their leave to drink, gamble, whore, and sightsee. Formosa is a beautiful place, and you tail a few groups of sailors for a time simply to see where they go. It does not stop visions of crab-riders and krakens and mermaids from appearing at the edges of your sight, brief moments of horror before you whip your head around and see they are nothing but shadows. They dance in your periphery and wave limbs that trail streaks behind them, as if they are spreading madness further into you.

The watch, still clenched in your hand, leaves sharp indentations in your skin. You curse Evans’ name half-heartedly, at once aware that your experience was neither his fault nor his wish, but still resenting him for it. Even outside this terrible dream, you will find it difficult to shake the impact of the _Obra Dinn_ on your psyche.

Perrott is, apparently, feeling similarly restless, though undoubtedly for a different reason. He double and triple checks the cargo manifest, then once more for good measure. You like him, you decide; his levelheadedness has proven valuable over the last months, and he has stepped up to fill Nichols’ missing position admirably. If he had survived the _Obra Dinn_ ’s long spate of tragedies and accidents, you would have certainly recommended him for a promotion.

However, as it stands, you are in the cargo hold. You watch carefully for any accidents waiting to happen, doing your best to keep an eye on everyone in the area. As the sailors load new cargo for the voyage home, you find yourself matching pace with the captain.

“Cast off!” Robert Witterel calls. “ _Obra Dinn_ is heading back home!”

**Author's Note:**

> Deep thanks to the contributors to the [Return of the Obra Dinn wiki](https://obradinn.fandom.com/wiki/Return_of_the_Obra_Dinn_Wiki) for their transcription of the conversation in each vignette, to YouTubers [LBG Plays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VFtoq7s7l8) and [Talmadge Atkins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuqf_5nT5Bw) for their thorough compilations of the fates and cutscenes, and to you, dear shamebucket, for prompting this fandom! It was a joy to write for you and I hope you like the fic.


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